The second half of your comment aside, I'll answer your question seriously: Autism appears to be, at base, a difference in sensory wiring that can confer mild benefits on the low end (such as the ability to be aware of lots of detail without requiring much attention) but on the severe end keeps the brain from being able to integrate all the input that's coming in and make sense of it (and much of the oddly-called-out "stereotypical behavior" in autistics is an effort to reduce the amount of information coming in by organizing the external world or producing sensory patterns that the brain can then smooth out).

It's apparently completely independent of intelligence per se, and some world-class geniuses can be so affected that they don't notice sexual appeal until it's pointed out to them in their 30s (Paul Dirac) while it's very likely that a significant segment of mildly-affected individuals of somewhat below-average intelligence who just have trouble reading social cues end up in trouble with The System because they're perceived as defiant or belligerent when they simply are oblivious to how they're coming across.

The Angry Hand of God:I am growing so tired about hearing about people with autism, ADD, ADHD, Asperger's, etc. Can't people just stop making up names for these so-called "conditions," and take some responsibility? I get it, you are socially awkward. When I was a kid, that would just mean that you gotten beat up here and there, but you would just go home as the beaten up weird kid, not some completely dysfunctional, Ritalin popping mess with some poorly diagnosed trendy "disease" caused by getting too many vaccinations.

Hey farkface, what responsibility? It's in their farking genes, Go tell a person with Parkinson's to stop shaking. Just because something was recently discovered. In the middle ages they called Leprosy Hansen's disease, does that mean people didn't have Leprosy because they didn't understand the disease or have a name until later on? Same with Autism, it isn't new, it's finally being understood.

/ps, the term Autism has been used for 100 years, it isn't something new

kroonermanblack:pute kisses like a man: dletter: Bladel: BarkingUnicorn: First story I read about her said she had "borderline Asperger's syndrome." But Fox, of course, had to amp it up a bit.

"For the longest time I just really wanted to know what was wrong with me," she said. "When I was finally diagnosed I felt like it came too late."As a parent of a kid who required hundreds of hours of speech therapy just to be able to finish a sentence, people like this really piss me off.

I understand what you are saying, but, at least from what I am aware, "Autism" has become a very "vague" term now for a wide range of conditions (as they call it, the "spectrum"). I'm sure for someone who has a child with a much more dramatic form, it is hard seeing someone like her who is fairly well spoken talk about her "struggles", but, at least technically, she probably still has "it". It is probably more that at this point maybe they need to have some more specific terms (and I'm sure they do, they just don't get talked about publicly much, everyone just says "Autism").

getting mad at people who have it less bad is like getting mad at cancer survivors because someone in your family died of cancer (or just suffered a lot more)

But pillorying every drinker is still great if one of your family died to a drunk, right?

that's even more of a false equivalent than i made. would have been closer if the family member died from drink.

chrylis:Bladel: "For the longest time I just really wanted to know what was wrong with me," she said. "When I was finally diagnosed I felt like it came too late."As a parent of a kid who required hundreds of hours of speech therapy just to be able to finish a sentence, people like this really piss me off.

There's at least a little redemption in being able to tell immediately that something's odd and get the appropriate counseling, training, etc. It's a whole other kind of burden to go for decades realizing that you just can't seem to click with people without being able to understand why, especially when you later find out that skilled help was available.

Yeah, this was my life. I was diagnosed at 18 and I thought it was "too late" - knowing certainly would have helped me through public school. I understand envying people who have it "better", and I can agree that people have it worse than me, but that doesn't mean it didn't suck for me too.

pute kisses like a man:dletter: Bladel: BarkingUnicorn: First story I read about her said she had "borderline Asperger's syndrome." But Fox, of course, had to amp it up a bit.

"For the longest time I just really wanted to know what was wrong with me," she said. "When I was finally diagnosed I felt like it came too late."As a parent of a kid who required hundreds of hours of speech therapy just to be able to finish a sentence, people like this really piss me off.

I understand what you are saying, but, at least from what I am aware, "Autism" has become a very "vague" term now for a wide range of conditions (as they call it, the "spectrum"). I'm sure for someone who has a child with a much more dramatic form, it is hard seeing someone like her who is fairly well spoken talk about her "struggles", but, at least technically, she probably still has "it". It is probably more that at this point maybe they need to have some more specific terms (and I'm sure they do, they just don't get talked about publicly much, everyone just says "Autism").

getting mad at people who have it less bad is like getting mad at cancer survivors because someone in your family died of cancer (or just suffered a lot more)

No, that isn't what this is about.

It is about the next time someone proposes cutting special education funding, people will remember the quirky/cute pageant winner, and not the kid in the wheelchair trying to learn to read. Or some celeb bimbo goes on Oprah and scares people about vaccines, and now we're spending tens of millions on urban legends instead of researching genetic markers or environmental factors. All so someone can sell a few books, or this gal can get a trendy diagnosis and go from Miss Congeniality to Third Runner-Up.

I'm not a medical professional but I thought borderline meant right on the cusp of making a definitive diagnosis meaning at this point it's sort of a matter of opinion.It's not like autism is a binary condition like pregnancy.I don't know if doctors use a system of scoring to determine it, but if she's only 1% away from being autistic on the scale I'd say that's within a margin of error.

IIRC, you had to have 3 of 5 criteria to be diagnosed as autistic, but that's all changing now, with the new DSM.

You could have really bad problems in 2 categories, but not be autistic, but someone with less severe problems in 3 categories would be.

clydedog was just making a joke. I'm sure he isn't actually that ignorant.

I was referring to BU's comment. the word "borderline" isn't even used in subby's article. Who knows how the definition of "borderline" was parsed in whatever article BU is mentioning? In light of which, I can take "Borderline Aspberger's Syndrome" to mean "almost having aspies", which is just being unfortunately weird, in my book. Lighten up, dudes.

The other article quoted the girl saying "I was diagnosed with borderline Asperger's..."